CIA Interrogation Probe a Bad Idea

The Obama Administration's plan to open a criminal probe into how suspected terrorists were interrogated when George W. Bush led the war on terror is a terrible idea for lots of reasons.

First, such an investigation would "delegitimize" the tough tactics against bad guys seeking to destroy our nation, and give those enemies a huge break as they pursue that goal.

And second, such an investigation, conducted by those in power against their political opponents, now out of power, would further poison politics in this nation.

Citing newly declassified reports, Obama Administration officials this week announced (or see here) they were investigating actions by CIA officials - actions they described as "unauthorized" and "inhumane."

Interestingly, those same reports described the interrogation tactics by CIA employees as quite effective.

According to the Associated Press:

"Investigators credited the detention and interrogation program for developing intelligence that prevented multiple attacks against Americans."

In other words, lots of American lives were saved, but some bad guys had some unpleasant days because they didn't want to 'fess up to what they and their colleagues were up to.

Sounds to me like a good deal.

Several weeks ago, Attorney General Eric HoldertoldNewsweek magazine that the Obama Administration might begin such an investigation. At that time, Holder said he realized the plan would be controversial.

"Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform," Holder told the newsmagazine at that time.

Speaking with the AP this week, Obama Administration spokesmen were careful to keep the President's fingerprints off the plan. President Obama, they stressed, seeks a "forward looking" rather than "backward looking" plan to prosecute the war on terror.

Those officials added that Holder, rather than President Obama, would be in charge of how to proceed.

But the AP report, perhaps unintentionally, illustrated just how misguided it is to feel any squeamishness about the vigor with which Bush officials pursued the war against Islamic radicalism.

For example, some interrogators toldKhalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, that "if anything else happens in the United States, 'we're going to kill your children.'"

Death threats violate torture laws, and the interrogator denied making a direct threat, according to the AP account.

But I'm not real clear on why making such a "threat" was such a bad idea. The man being questioned, after all, allegedly directed the deaths of some 3,000 Americans. No doubt, he would repeat that slaughter if he could.

In another example cited by the AP, one interrogator pinched a carotid artery of a suspect, causing the detainee to pass out. The interrogator then shook the suspect awake. This happened, mercy me, three times.

Why this "terrible" questioning? "The interrogator," the AP reported, "had never been taught how to conduct detainee questioning."

Elsewhere, it was also reported that suspects were subjected to second-hand smoke.

But there are at least two reasons why Holder's suggestion has such an emotional appeal for Democrats, who control both the White House and the Congress.

First, as serious questions begin to be raised about various Obama policies - from plans to set up a government-run health care system to the fast ballooning deficit - it always feels good to deflect attention from the present to the past, when the other guys were in charge.

Democrats have a long history of this. It has always been more fun to talk about Joseph McCarthy than to critically examine liberals' failure to meet the Soviet threat. On the economic front, re-hashing supposed Republican culpability for the Great Depression was a sure-fire electoral strategy for decades.

Second, it is much more emotionally satisfying to talk about Bush and torture than to come up with an alternative, and coherent, strategy for dealing with the threat of Islamic radicalism.

But if the Obama Administration goes ahead with this plan to "criminalize" policy differences, law and politics may well move a step closer to how they're done in Third World nations.

How so? In the American system, citizens are willing to entrust each incoming administration with the reins of power because they trust that each new administration accepts limits to that power.

One of those limits is a distinction between politics and the law, in which each has its own distinct sphere.

Policies are decided in the political arena, but losers in a political contest do not fear that the law will be used against them. The law, a separate sphere, is to punish those who objectively violate the law, not to throw political opponents into prison.

Does that give a political administration a "free pass" for lawbreaking? Not really - because wrongdoers can always be thrown out by means of the ballot box, without the additional sanction of prison.

As things now stand, the public does have a large measure of respect for the law. We may not agree with every law, but we accept that the law is "objective," that the law is not a personal tool of the people in power.

But in dictatorships, residents "fear" the law - but only in the way that one fears a gun in the hands of a criminal. There is no understanding that the law is "objectively" applied, with a good faith effort to apply it impartially.

Were Holder to prosecute Bush-era officials, the public's appreciation of the law as an objective, non-political standard, would change.

In addition, with that transformation of the law into a partisan political tool, the use of the law for such ends would become a never-ending cycle. Every time power changed hands in Washington, the new party would be sorely tempted to take the law into its own hands - to exact political revenge by means of the justice system.

At the same time, the stakes of holding power would grow infinitely higher. Not only would a party out of power not be able to set policy, but officials in that party would be in danger of prison, or worse.

As a result, the temptation to cling to power, and the temptation to use extra-legal methods to retain power, would grow enormously. Turning over the keys to the White House, smoothly, might well become very difficult.